But You Can Call Me Kate
by LadySmith
Summary: A pretty Fianna Galiard stops to tell you her tale. But wait, this is no child of Stag! A tale oveheard at Festival, the Nuwisha Gathering. A Werewolf:The Apocalypse fic, one shot.


The "Galiard's" Tale.  
  
Well on ye, brothers and sisters!   
  
Hi. The name's Kathryn O'Connor, But You Can  
  
Call Me Kate. Though I should properly introduce  
  
myself as Raven Curious Moon. I don't lie to the Caern  
  
Guardians, I WAS born to Connor Calms the Storm of the  
  
Fianna when the Galiard moon shone high in the skies  
  
above the prarie dog caern in Manitoba. The  
  
assumptions they make based on that aren't *my* fault,  
  
are they?  
  
Like so many others, my story begins with my ma and my  
  
pa meeting at a wild fianna moot. She caught his eye,  
  
and one thing led to another, untill in the hight of  
  
passion, my ma changed forms, and my da assumed that  
  
he had broken the litany, and the thought broke his  
  
mind. He fell into the killing sadness of harano, and  
  
hasn't yet come out in these 18 years. When my ma  
  
brought me to him 9 months later, he grabbed my  
  
bundle, without even looking, and raised his claws  
  
over it to do me what he thought was a mercy. Lucky  
  
for me, and the rest of us, he couldn't bring  
  
himself to it, and left me with his sister and her  
  
husband, good fianna in-the-know kinfolk. They  
  
couldn't understand why thier brother regected such a  
  
seemingly perfect homid baby, but when they tried to  
  
ask him, he wouldn't acknolegde my exsistance. For  
  
seventeen years, he's thought himself the father of a  
  
metis. Maybe someday, I'll take the name of  
  
Kishajoten, and pay him a visit....  
  
Anyway, my aunt and uncle raised me, and taught me all  
  
I needed to know about being fianna kinfolk, and maybe  
  
someday fianna, that they could. When I was nearing my  
  
16th birthday, and no change in sight, they started to  
  
look nervous, and I knew there was something they  
  
weren't telling me. Maybe they knew about the strange  
  
dreams I'd been having, of a desert I'd never seen but  
  
felt like home, of strange green hills with fae  
  
dancing in them, but mostly of a woman whose face  
  
seemed wonderfully familiar....  
  
One night I had a dream of that woman and I in the  
  
desert, and she tuned, not to a wolf, but a coyote,  
  
and looked at me to chase her. I did, and we ran for  
  
what felt like hours. eventially she stopped, and  
  
waited for mr to catch up. When I did she turned and  
  
spoke to me, plain as day, "What is your name,  
  
Kitling?"   
  
"I am Kathryn O'Conner, uh, ma'am."   
  
She laughed a canid laugh at me. "You could use  
  
another one. I name you Curious Moon. Wake up, Curious  
  
Moon."   
  
And I did, only to discover that I was five blocks  
  
from home, in my pajamas, five minutes before dawn  
  
when my aunt would come into my room to check on me!!  
  
I ran like I'd never ran before, and while I was  
  
running, I began to feel very strange, first as if I  
  
was much taller, and then as If I was much shorter,  
  
and running on four legs instead of two. I seemed to  
  
fly down the streets and made it home and through my  
  
bedroom window just when I heard my aunt knock on the  
  
door. That's when I looked up and saw her, sitting on  
  
my dresser; the woman from my dream. She looked at me  
  
and said, in the same voice the coyote had, "Whatever  
  
they tell you, they're wrong. And whatever you do,  
  
don't tell them about me. I'll be back to straighten  
  
you out. Good luck, Curious Moon, my daughter." And  
  
then she walked into the mirror. Looking in after her,  
  
I caught a look at myself. I'd been wondering why the  
  
room had seemed much smaller....  
  
By this time my aunt was pounding on the door  
  
"Kathryn, Katie lass, open the door"  
  
"Don't come in! I'm a monster!!"  
  
"No, no, yer not a monster, just let me in and I'll  
  
explain."  
  
I finally let her in (It took a while to work the door  
  
nob with those claws on.) She sat me down, and  
  
explaind what had happend, how my father was a  
  
were-wolf, and so was I, and the long proud line of  
  
Fianna I was from, and about the Bard, Oisen, and how  
  
I was a galiard like him, and that they'd find my  
  
Father or another Fianna to teach me all about bein' a  
  
were-wolf.  
  
You can't blame her. As far as she knew, she was  
  
right.  
  
Anyway, much later, after she left me to get my head  
  
sorted out, the woman in the mirror returned. And  
  
*she* told me what really hapened. What she was, and  
  
what I really was, how she had lured my father away at  
  
a moot to teach him a lesson, and how she had  
  
discovered that her little stunt had had an unexpected  
  
side-effect: me.  
  
I probably should have hated her by this point. If I'd  
  
bred true to me dad's side, I probably would have. But  
  
the fact that I didn't, and that I could understand  
  
why she did what she did, proved more than anything  
  
else to me that she was tellin' the truth about what I  
  
really was. She also warned me that while I was a  
  
true child of Coyote, I had a few.... quirks from my  
  
Fianna heritage. One good, one not so good, both could  
  
be worked to my advantage. First off, my war form was  
  
much bigger than it was supposed to be, I looked like  
  
a were-wolf instead of were-coyote in manabozho.  
  
Second, because of my mixed (up) heritage, my soul  
  
couldn't decide what moon I was. Coyote said I was a  
  
no-moon, because of luna's curse; my fianna blood said  
  
I was a galiard, because of my birth and line. Both  
  
being genial folks by nature, they compromised. I was  
  
a no-moon coyote to the spirits, my gifts and such  
  
would reflect that (this being why I bred true to my  
  
ma). On the other paw, I would have the temperment of  
  
a galiard, without the rage and gifts. She said folks  
  
like me were called "the Bad Moons" and we sometimes  
  
had a hard time of it. This would cause me problems  
  
with other Coyotes, but it would help me to fit in  
  
with garou, if I wanted to do that. It seemed like a  
  
fair bargain to me. I have fun this way.  
  
Anyway, long story short (I know, too late), she took  
  
me away to finish my training. My poor aunt! She had  
  
the entire sept running around winipeg searching for a  
  
poor lost cub!! (It didn't occur to any of the  
  
brilliant Children of Stag to try looking in the  
  
umbra. Oops.) Anyway, ma taught me everything, and  
  
dumped me in a realm to start my totem quest. By right  
  
of passage, I had to find the Tunnel, and pick a face.  
  
Most of you've been through this, so I won't  
  
elaborate. Suffice to say that while Kokopelli spoke  
  
to my galiard nature, I liked Raven's way of  
  
whispering in the ears of others. Seemed a good thing  
  
for a "Fianna Galiard" to be doing. And I had some  
  
built in tricks for it allready, so I went back home  
  
to pull off the scam of the century...  
  
When the lost cub came home, (fell out of a  
  
moon-bridge, accually, I love grand entrances!!) they  
  
was a grand fuss made over me, and I put my galiard  
  
nature to work spinnin' the grandest tale you've ever  
  
heard of my adventures in the "spirit lands". If  
  
Prairie Dog hadn't remembered back to the time when  
  
she was a Kiba-Totem, I would've been sunk, but she  
  
allways was a mischevous one. Anyway, I got my  
  
training (again!) and went through a rite of passage  
  
(again!!) and emerged a full blown Fianna Galiard.  
  
(not!!!) (The Fianna rite of passage is no pic-nic, by  
  
the by. I figure I get some bragging rights for  
  
succsessfully passing TWO different rites.)  
  
So that's the tale, and I hope it was a good'un. Now  
  
lets go down to Shamrock's Tavern for a drink after such a  
  
long yarn, and you can all tell me *yer* tales....  
  
*** 


End file.
